Vansreik

Vansreik is a city in the Great Crater of Mortenox, on the south-western edge of The Empire, near the Free Ports and the southern lands of the Da’fat Federation. It is counted among the large cities of the Westreach province, though it lies between Westreach and the Bluelands. It is a place both marvellous and terrifying, full of opportunity and fraught with danger, and one where rules do not work as they do anywhere else.¹²

The crater

The origin of the crater is disputed. Scholars hold that it was made by the impact of a meteor. The Church of Alarath attributes it to a clash between the archangel Shamyaza and a colossal demon, and the legend of Saint Clarice tells that the crater formed when that demon fell to the ground in defeat.³⁴

Beneath the city rests an ancient necropolis, destroyed in the cataclysm that shaped the crater, and at its centre a deep and ominous pit runs down to unfathomable depths. The ruins below are those of the old City of Mortenox, once one of the most magically prominent cities of its time. Seven great lenses that once belonged to the Mortenox observatory survive; when the comet struck, the observatory tower sank beneath the earth.³⁵

Spoiler: How old the buried city isRevealSpoils: Shadow Over Vansreik · Say what you have read

The city buried by the impact predates the ages, and its remnants still rest beneath Vansreik.⁶

The Deep Pit

The Deep Pit is a vast dungeon beneath the city, home to many mysteries and magical items, and the city grew up around it. It is the main reason for Vansreik's booming trade in magical items.⁶⁷

Entry to the pit is regulated by the noble houses. The right to enter, commonly called a Ticket, is a sought-after resource among the mercenary companies, and mission orders into the pit are issued only to the city's licensed mercenary companies. House Von Rain, as the current rulers of the city, may issue the largest number of Tickets.⁸

Expeditions are perilous. One of the first, led by Donald Whent, went down the hatch and came out three weeks later with three of its seven members missing, but carrying chests of magic items, long-lost art and tomes of arcane secrets. Donald believes that widening the city's borders into the pit would let Vansreik prosper, and he presses the noble families to found a smaller settlement inside it.⁹

People and power

The noble families who rule Vansreik come from Westreach, but most of its people come from the Bluelands, a divide that is easily stirred.¹⁰

The city is hard to enter: newcomers without the required documents are turned away at the gates.¹¹

The church

The most powerful church of Shamyaza stands in Vansreik. It has a hand in city politics and controls the distribution of clerical healing to the citizens, so most noble houses strive to keep on good terms with the clergy. Its archpriest, Matheo, rules the clergy with an iron fist.¹²

The Church of Vansreik is closely associated with the Eagle Brigade, whose ranks include many divine casters as a result. Matheo once awarded the relics of Vansreik to Valakar and his companions for saving the western provinces from a goblinoid threat.¹³

Mercenary guilds

Mercenary guilds dominate the streets. The oldest is the Reik Storms, which no longer works like a guild at all: it is formally separate from the City Watch but in practice is the watch with better gear, and it is the city's main armed force.¹⁴

The three main guilds are:

• the Eagle Brigade, founded by a former knight and watch captain of the Reik Storms, which enlists noble adventurers and sellswords with ties to the Empire and holds many Tickets through its ties to the noble houses;¹⁵¹⁶
• the Warmongers, the newest of the authorised guilds, quartered in the Ludus, a converted gladiator school within the walls;¹⁷
• the Shortstack Stranglers, the largest and least organised guild, made up of thieves, burglars and blackmailers and run from the tavern Halfling is Your Mother. Through the taverns, inns and brothels it owns across the city, it trades chiefly in secrets.¹⁸

The heads of these three guilds meet at Halfling is Your Mother every two months at what is called the Grand Table. The Warmongers and the Eagles are now locked in a violent feud, and the city guard and the legal organisations have doubled their numbers in the streets to keep them apart.¹⁹

Other organisations work alongside them. The Black Veil, one of the oldest assassin guilds in the Empire, is the second most powerful trader of magical items in the city, yet it strictly forbids its members to take contracts within Vansreik. A thieves' guild, cruel but all-accepting, gives refuge to outcasts, and a hunters' guild also works in the city.²⁰

Districts and surroundings

The Undercity, reached through the dangerous tunnels of the necropolis, is the centre of illegal activity in Vansreik, and all four mercenary guilds visit it often.¹⁵

Vansreik has its slums, where some of its mercenaries were born into poverty, and its noble estates, in one of which a vampire was once found posing as a guest. Its notable buildings include The Stone Nest Caravansary, the Eagle Brigade's new headquarters in the city centre; the luxurious Ruby Inn; and the Grand Gear, a gnomish workshop.²¹

Swamps surround the city, and hunters are hired to clear the monstrosities hiding in them. Bellwater Village, a halfling village, lies nearby, and a high-elven outpost stands a day's journey away. The city has had to defend itself against goblinoid raids.²²²³

Drawn to the crater

Vansreik draws adventurers, scholars and fortune-seekers from across the realm. Some come for the story of the Deep Pit, some in hope of learning arcane secrets, and some in pursuit of the rumours, whispered in the city, of a mythical dwarven artifact seen within the crater.²⁴

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